Chapter 1227 Making Dumplings (1/2)

During the new year festival, they visited relatives, had festive dinners, and the time passed quickly. In a blink of an eye, it was the Lantern Festival.

Fireworks were traditionally set off on the Lantern Festival throughout China, and Li Du's hometown was no exception. Every family would set off fireworks at this time of the year.

However, the government now paid more attention to taking care of the environment, and fireworks management was stricter. The county administration prohibited the citizens from setting off fireworks at home. Instead, everyone was supposed to gather at the square, and the authorities would be the ones to set off the fireworks.

Li Du saw the notice and said to Sophie, ”I'll take you to see the fireworks after dinner. They are beautiful.”

Ivana came to China too. She was a gifted child and learned languages very fast. She did not only speak German and English fluently, but she also spoke Mandarin. When Sophie took lessons in Mandarin she would bring Ivana along.

Ivana understood Li Du's words and whispered, ”Can I go and see the fireworks too?”

Children were always interested in fireworks.

Li Du touched her head and said, ”Of course, there is a children's fireworks area. Your father will take you there, and Aunty and Uncle will buy you a lot of fireworks later.”

Ivana clapped quietly, her eyes shaping into beautiful crescents as she smiled.

Sure enough, money was so powerful that with little more than one million, the girl now looked like a pretty, blonde doll.

She would be more beautiful in the future, not thanks to nature, but by artificial means.

Because the child was growing up, her skin and bones were constantly changing, so she would have to undergo plastic surgery every year, for better or worse.

Li Du's parents put a kneading board on the coffee table and took out the glutinous rice dough and the fillings that they had prepared beforehand to roll their own dumplings.

There were many types of those, and their tastes were all different. Therefore, Li Du's father prepared many types of fillings. There were about ten big bowls of them.

Li Du came closer to see and asked, ”Hey, how come do you have so many different types of fillings this year? I haven't seen anything like this for a long time.”

Before he went to junior high school, his family's living standard was relatively low.

Li Du was his parents' only child and they loved him very much. Although their family wasn't rich, they still gave him their best.

Li Du's father knew how to make many dumpling fillings, including black sesame, peanut paste, red bean paste, crushed walnuts and some fruit fillings, such as apple paste, pear paste and peach paste.

However, Li Du's favorite was dumplings stuffed with hawthorn cakes, a popular childhood snack for his generation. It tasted soft and flaky with a sweet and sour taste and was very famous.

Hawthorn cake dumplings were refreshingly sweet and sour, while other traditional fillings, like black sesame and peanut butter, were too greasy and would soon make one feel sick.

In this way, the fresh hawthorn cake filling was far superior.

Later, when Li Du went to university, he didn't eat hawthorn cake dumplings anymore. In his heart, this was a taste reserved for the festival in his hometown.

Li Du's father, as usual, prepared hawthorn cake. This was not difficult to do. He only needed to smash the hawthorn into a paste and add some honey to make it a little sticky.

Li Du went to roll the hawthorn cake. Ah Meng placed its front claws on the coffee table and placed its head on its claws, looking with concentration on the red hawthorn cake without even blinking.

”Do you want to eat it?” Li Du rolled a piece and showed it to Ah Meng.

Ah Meng hurriedly opened its mouth to eat, but Li Du did not give him the treat, putting it on the coffee table instead.

The honey badger's flexible forelimbs were an important tool for digging holes, but they were a bit too short to reach the coffee table top.

This made it frustrated. Honey badgers had a sweet tooth and were especially fond of honey. That was how they got their name.

They also had a well-developed sense of smell, which made Ah Meng go wild over the sweetness of hawthorn cakes and, of course, the fragrance of honey.